The Runaway Spell (6 page)

The zoo was across town, miles away, and B knew her mom wouldn’t want her to ride the public transportation buses there all by herself. She’d need someone older to take her and George.

It was time to cash in some sister favors.

B knew that during lunch period, Dawn would be in the band room, practicing with the jazz ensemble. A few minutes before lunch ended, she left the cafeteria and headed down the corridors for the music wing. She camped outside the band room door and waited, glad she didn’t have to chase down a human hamster in there again.

When the bell rang, Dawn came out, flanked by a handful of other tall teenagers carrying their band
instruments in black cases. Dawn paused in her tracks at the sight of B. Her eyebrows rose slightly. It was code for, “Is everything okay?”

B nodded, then beckoned for Dawn to meet her away from the group.

“Catch up to you guys in a minute,” Dawn said, breaking away from her group. “What’s up?”

“I need a favor,” B said in her sweetest, most pleading voice. “George and I need to go to the zoo today after school. It’s important. Can you take us? Please?”

Dawn frowned. “The zoo? Why today? What’s the big rush?”

“Oh, it’s a project,” B said vaguely. “I’m writing a research paper on zebras and I want to, um, observe real ones, and … take some pictures of them.” B blushed.
It’s true. I am writing a research paper on zebras! I just need to remember to bring the camera.

“I was going to get together with the girls this afternoon,” Dawn said. “You remember Angela, Stef, and Macey?”

B remembered them all right. They were witches
from Dawn’s magic class and the ones who first showed B what a bag-cauldron could do.

“Why don’t they come, too?” B said. “I’ve got enough allowance saved to treat you all to ice cream sundaes at the zoo. Deal?”

Dawn shrugged. “I’ll check with them. They probably won’t mind. We’ll leave from home at four, after my softball practice.”

B gave Dawn a quick hug. “Thank you
soooo
much!”

“Ack, you poked me with your tiger nose!”

“Sorry.”

At four o’clock, George and B were waiting on B’s front porch for Dawn to be ready and her friends to arrive. At B’s insistence, George had stuffed his tail down a leg of his jeans. Nightshade, B’s black cat, twined himself in and out between B’s ankles, and she scratched him absentmindedly between his ears.

Dawn’s friends came into view, walking around the corner — Angela, with sleek black hair and a
shiny black leather jacket; Stef, with spiky hair dyed pink today, and wearing a rainbow-striped vest and purple high-top sneakers; and Macey, whose long red hair was braided. B suspected some magical needlework had gone into her pretty hand-knit sweater.

“Hey, B,” Macey said. “We haven’t seen you in a while! Thanks for inviting us to come to the zoo with you.”

“Yeah, thanks for the ice cream,” Stef said. “Make mine a triple-fudge caramel banana split.”

“All I want is a diet soda,” said Angela, checking her reflection in a handheld mirror.

“Everyone, this is George, my best friend,” B said. “George, this is Angela, and Stef, and Macey.”

“Hey,” George said, turning a little red when he shook hands with Macey. B looked at him sideways, suppressing a smile.

“What kind of ice cream are you getting, George?” Macey asked.

“Oh, uh, I, er, Coach says not much sweets, I mean, I … think I’ll just have a salad.” His last
words tumbled out awkwardly. Stef threw back her head and hooted with laughter. “A
salad
? Since when does a kid pick salad over a sundae?”

“He’s just a little health conscious before the big game,” B said, not wanting them to think too much about it.

Just then, Dawn opened the front door, freshly showered and beautified. “Hey, girls!” she cried, hugging all her friends.

“C’mon, let’s hurry or we’ll have to wait for another bus.” They all walked to the bus stop. After twenty minutes and a transfer, they reached the zoo and paid their entry fees.

“Let’s go see the zebras first,” B told George and the older girls. “Then we can get that out of the way and get the ice cream.”

“What’s your hurry?” Stef said. “I want to see the penguins. Waddle, waddle.” She pretended to walk like a penguin.

Macey sidled up to B. “Hon, what’s your little friend up to?”

B turned to see George bending low over some shrubbery, taking a big bite out of a leafy
branch. “Oh, he’s always clowning around,” B said, then grabbed George and stepped on his toe. “Watch it, zebra-boy,” she whispered. “No grazing, okay?”

“But it smells so good!” George protested. “Don’t you want a bite, too?”

“No, and neither do you,” B said. “I brought some chocolate; want some?”

George stuck out his tongue. “Yick. No thanks.” B blinked. Was it just her imagination, or had George’s tongue gotten really long all of a sudden?

She steered George toward the penguin house, following the older girls. After the penguins they toured the aquarium, the reptile house, and then the aviary. George seemed bored, and B, who ordinarily loved the zoo, was anxious. She was in no mood to marvel at parrots or pythons. Zebras were her only research interest today.

At last she persuaded Dawn and her friends to join them for the African safari train ride. They climbed aboard and waited for the train car to fill. George bounced up and down on his seat and let loose another zebra whinny. Dawn and her friends
sat halfway across the train and avoided looking at him.

The train car was three-quarters full when a young man in a zoo T-shirt got on board. “Hi, folks,” he said. “I’m Mack, and I’ll be your safari guide today. I’m a junior at Springfield State College, majoring in zoology.”

B noticed Dawn sit up a little straighter, and Angela adjust her hair.

“The most important safety rule today is to stay in your seats, and don’t, under any circumstances, attempt to open the door of the train car, okay? Remember, they look fascinating, but these are wild animals we’re dealing with. We don’t want anybody hurt — not the animals, and not you folks. Okay, everyone ready? Here we go.”

The train lurched forward. At first B saw nothing but trees.

“Giraffes!” a little girl cried.

Mack described the zoo’s giraffe families, including the two calves that had been born there that
year, as the train chugged forward. B watched the giraffes eat leaves off the treetops until the train turned a corner and passed through another gate.

“There’s a special kind of animal in this enclosure,” Mack said. “Sometimes we don’t see them if they’re resting. Can anyone guess what’s in here?”

B scanned the grassy landscape, looking for black and white stripes. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a tawny flash of fur.

“LION!” George screamed. “RUN!” He raced down the aisle of the train car and climbed onto the rear seat, whinnying in terror.

“Whoa, buddy!” Mack cried. “It’s okay; you’re safe inside the train!”

B caught a glimpse of a brown mane and a huge, lanky body loping across the enclosure. She hurried down the aisle to George and yanked his arm till he sat down with a thud. Other zoo visitors shot disapproving glances at them, and Dawn sent B a
what-on-earth-is-going-on
look. B patted George’s shoulder until he settled down.

The train left the lion enclosure and entered the elephant area. The occupants of the train ran to the windows,
ooh
ing and
aah
ing about the baby elephants, and B sighed with relief as the focus shifted off the backseat.

“You okay, George?”

“I think so,” George panted. “Did you see the size of that guy? He could have eaten me for lunch!”

“Well, he didn’t,” B said.

“Look, zebras!” the same little girl cried. The train had entered another gated area.

B’s heartbeat raced. This was the moment. But here she was, stuck inside a train! How was she ever going to get her hands on a zebra hair? Could magic help? To be so close, and still not get a hair …

She could see the zebras now, some running through the field, others grazing placidly. They were beautiful, she had to admit, but all she could think about were those millions of zebra hairs, just out of reach!

George pressed his nose against the glass. “Look at ’em, B! Have you ever seen something so amazing?”

“Well, um …” B didn’t have time to finish. George clambered over her, unbolted the rear emergency exit door, and jumped off the train!

The emergency alarm shrilled.

Brakes hissed as the train came to a stop.

“Get back here, kid!” Mack cried. He whipped out a walkie-talkie. “Security, we have a situation in the zebra pen. Send a coupla guys, pronto!”

B watched George’s back, racing off toward the zebras, then looked at Dawn and her friends, whose mouths were still hanging open in shock.

What could she do? The only way out of this mess was to get a zebra hair!

B leaped through the door and followed George.

“Come back here!” Mack hollered.

B sprinted through the tall grass. George was well ahead of her, and pulling farther away.
I couldn’t catch George even if he wasn’t a zebra,
B thought,
but I have to try.

The zebras, grazing in groups, looked like a stripy optical illusion in the distance. One of them raised its head, ears pricked, and soon the whole herd was alert, hearing George’s footsteps approaching.

“Hey, you kids! Stop this
instant
and come back to the train!”

B glanced over her shoulder to see Mack and another zoo worker racing after them.

Uh-oh.

The zebras broke off their grazing and galloped around the perimeter of the pen in long, graceful strides, their black tails streaming. George swerved to follow them, his long legs flying. A pair of elephants, watching from over the fence, trumpeted at all the excitement.

“Forget the girl, get that crazy boy!” Mack called to his comrade. The zoo workers passed B and
closed in on George. He ran in a zigzag, just like the zebras were doing. He let out a loud whinny, and a few of the younger zebras paused and turned to look back at him.

There was no way she could catch up to George now, so B paused to catch her breath. It was all she could do not to flop in the grass.

Then she saw them, not far off, hiding behind a thicket of bushes — a mother zebra and her calf, who had ducked underneath her round belly. The mother zebra watched the commotion warily.

B tried to still her breath so the zebras wouldn’t be startled. She stared at them through the leafy cover.

For a second B forgot everything else. The zebra was magnificent! Her muscles rippled under her smooth hide, and the stark black and white of her stripes was dazzling. Her mane stood stiff and upright, as B had learned from her zebra research. But to see one here, so close, breathing, watching, and nuzzling her calf, made all the online photographs insignificant by comparison.

“H-A-I-R,” B whispered, hoping not to scare the mother zebra away.

Her pointy ears twitched, but she didn’t run. Something
twinged
on the top of her mane, and a stiff black hair floated into B’s outstretched hand.

“Gotcha!” the security guards cried, and B turned just in time to see Mack nail George with a perfect football tackle. Gripping the hair tightly, she hurried over to see if her best friend was okay.

He was. He’d landed in a cushy spot: the soft mud around the zebras’ drinking hole.

“I have never been so embarrassed in my life,” Angela declared on the bus back home. “Next time your sister wants us to take her somewhere, Dawn, will you please make sure she leaves her immature friends at home?”

B avoided Dawn’s glare.

“We won’t be taking either of them to the zoo any time soon,” Stef said, “since they’ve both been
banned for a year!”

“They don’t need to rub our noses in it,” George
muttered to B. The mud on his face and shirt was slowly forming a crust.

B bit her lip. She couldn’t exactly defend George for what he’d done, and yet, she was as much to blame for turning him half zebra in the first place.

“I’m just bummed that they wouldn’t even let us stay long enough to buy ice cream,” Macey said. “You owe us, B.”

B nodded. Ice cream was the least of her worries. What would her parents say when they heard about this? More important, would the concoction fix George?

Dawn glared at B. B could feel a lecture coming on. Sure enough, “B, I suppose you thought you were helping,” Dawn said, “but that was so ridiculous of you to go chasing after George. The zebras could have trampled you to death! What if George had spooked them, and they’d stampeded?”

“Look at the bright side,” Macey said. “At least he chased after zebras, not alligators.”

“The only bright side is that it’s over,” Dawn said. “Let’s get the kids home, then go uptown to the
Magical Moo. I think we all need to unwind. My treat.”

Dawn turned and shot B a raised-eyebrow look. The look was sister-code for, “You’re gonna pay me back for the ice cream tonight.”

B nodded. Fair enough.

At the bus stop, the girls headed uptown while George and B headed for home.

“I don’t know what came over me back there, B,” George said. “I’m sorry I got you into trouble.”

B sighed. “Don’t be sorry, George,” she said. “I’m the one that got you into trouble, really.”

“Yeah, but I persuaded you to do it in the first place,” George said.

“So that makes us even. But listen, I’ve got … an idea.” She caught herself on the brink of saying, “A zebra hair!” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the bagged stinky soccer sock and the tissue she’d wrapped the zebra hair in.
One from the original the brew, and hair of the beast that troubles you. I’ve got them both.

But what should she spell? To reverse the spell and undo …

She closed her eyes. “R-E-V-E-R-S-E.”

She opened them and …
oh, no!

“Still got the tail; I can tell,” George said. Then he saw B. “What’s the matter?” he cried, panic in his voice.

B pointed a shaky finger at him. “Your face!”

George rubbed furiously at his cheeks. “What, the mud?”

“Nope,” B said, putting a hand over her eyes. “You’ve got more zebra stripes.”